KU News Release

Graduation stories: Senior commits to restoring environment, cancer research

Jessica Roark

LAWRENCE — In a perfect world, Jessica Roark would be on campus at the University of Kansas this spring completing an environmental studies degree and preparing to finish a civil engineering degree in 2010.

Instead, the graduating senior from Meriden is in Houston, Texas, e-mailing class assignments between medical appointments while undergoing a second round of chemotherapy and radiation treatment for cancer.

On May 15, Roark will return to Lawrence and become the first in her family to graduate college. She plans to march in the May 17 commencement procession at KU but will take her final exams after commencement. The following week, Roark will join a river restoration project as a recipient of $3,500 stipend for a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.

“I am not letting cancer decide my future,” Roark said in a phone interview while waiting for a chemotherapy therapy session at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“I like to see results,” said the self-supporting student, who is as committed to improving the natural world as she is to promoting research for adenoid cystic carcinoma — the rare form of cancer for which she is being treated. It typically occurs in salivary glands but can occur anywhere in the body and has a high propensity for recurrence.

Roark was a sophomore in 2006 when the swelling around her right eye was finally correctly diagnosed. In spring 2007, surgeons removed a tumor and her right eye.

By fall 2007, Roark had returned to classes and working part time in KU’s Office of Environment, Health and Safety, while adjusting to single-eye vision and forging ahead with her career plans. In summer 2008, she interned with a Kansas City-area engineering consulting firm. Last fall, she studied abroad at the University of Hong Kong and ventured to Three Gorges Dam on her own.

Next fall, she will be vice president of the Society of Women Engineers at KU. Roark is hopeful that the chapter’s first fundraising auction will support the Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma Research Foundation, started by a woman who, like Roark, was not immediately diagnosed because this form of cancer is so rare.

“It was almost five months of trying various treatments to get the swelling to go down,” she said, before a biopsy produced inconclusive results but a recommendation that Roark see an oncologist. A second biopsy clearly revealed adenoid cystic carcinoma.

“I just sat there. I thought, all right, cancer — what do I do now?” Roark said. “I was kind of in this fight or flight moment. I was floating or hanging there with no idea what’s going to happen next. I didn’t know much about cancer. I didn’t know about chemo. I didn’t know about radiation, but I wasn’t about to freak out.”

She researched cancer centers and options for treatment and talked with her professors about how she could keep on track with her plans to earn two degrees. Roark made arrangements to continue in her campus job and worked to maintain her scholarships.

Once she located oncology specialists, Roark found herself reeling from talk of life expectancies, surgery and the choice of a prosthetic eye. Ultimately she preferred a natural look of a skin graft rather than the lifeless stare of prosthesis. She donated the tumor to MD Anderson Tumor Bank.

Through the Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma Research Foundation, she learned that little research is focused on finding effective therapies for her disease. Science has not found any strong genetic or environmental risk factors for this cancer. Roark committed herself to help the foundation in any way she can.

This spring she hit a low point. A regular checkup revealed the cancer had recurred. Roark recalled, “I felt no one was on my side. No one was working for me.” She remembered thinking, “if you want something, no one else is going to get it for you.”

She went into action — “with cancer you can’t afford not to take action.” She phoned MD Anderson, scheduled appointments and talked with her professors about doing homework in Houston and taking finals after commencement.

Her calm and determined management of such major medical and academic decisions at a young age has earned Roark the admiration of her professors, family and friends.

Stan Loeb, former environmental studies staff member now with KU’s Office of Environment, Health and Safety, said that in his 15 years with the program, few if any students have “addressed their whole life — their illness and their dreams for the future — any better than Ms. Roark. She understands that she needs to make decisions about her health care but she never forgets that she wants her college degrees. I seriously doubt I would have been as calm or thorough in handling such a situation. I am fortunate to be her friend.”

Her environmental studies adviser, William Woods, KU geography professor, agreed. “Jessica is a most remarkable individual who has triumphed in the face of great adversity. I simply couldn’t be more impressed by her as a person and a scholar. I have been teaching for 33 years and if I had to pick the number one student in my experience, it would be Jessica.”

Perhaps better than most, Roark recognizes an imperfect world. Her goals are to contribute to improvements not only in the natural environment but also in the life opportunities for anyone with cancer. She firmly believes that “nothing’s impossible.”

Her parents, John and Lori Roark of Meriden and Charlena Eckert of North Kansas City, Mo., plan to attend her commencement. She also has maternal grandparents who live in Tonganoxie. She is a 2002 graduate of Jefferson West High School in Meriden.

To learn more about the Adenoid Cystic Carinoma Research Foundation visit www.accrf.org.

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